Zendrive Study: The Riskiest Drivers Cost More Than You May Think, But Now There’s A Fix.

The term “accident,” even in a collision sense, often has the connotation of being an event that happens by chance or without apparent or deliberate cause. At Zendrive, we believe that most collisions simply aren’t chance occurrences. In fact, 90% of collisions are caused by measurable human error. After analyzing more than 15 billion miles of driving behavior, we can measure risky driving behavior that causes collisions, like phone use while driving, speeding, hard breaks and rapid acceleration.

We analyzed our dataset of over 15 billion miles and over 5 million active users, and found something surprising: risk of human error is unequally distributed. In fact, it turns out that the worst quartile of commercial drivers account for over half of all commercial collisions, and the stats for personal drivers are very similar.

According to the National Safety Council, the average cost of a car collision was $7,500 in 2015. Since the riskiest drivers cause most of these collisions, these drivers are also the most expensive from a social and insurance perspective. As a mission-driven company working to improve road safety through data and analytics, we can make the greatest impact by helping risky drivers improve their driving behavior. The Zendrive Dashboard helps fleets do just that. Zendrive measures driving behavior through sensors on drivers’ smartphones, then uses sophisticated artificial-intelligence algorithms to understand, contextualize and rate every driving instance. The insights are then shared via the Zendrive Dashboard. A fleet manager can see both aggregate and individual performance, with drivers categorized as “Excellent,” “Fair” and “Risky” segments. Coaching and messaging based on performance gives a powerful tool for reducing the overall risk of a crash, and thereby reduces expected costs related to road safety.

Our study, “Preventing Collisions and Reducing Fleet Costs while using the Zendrive Dashboard,” tests this measurement and feedback loop as a tool to reduce insurance risk and improve driving safety. To validate it, we looked at 8 fleets (and their 21K drivers) that have used Zendrive to manage road safety risk. We monitored their ability to improve the driving of the riskiest 25% through the coaching and insights available via Zendrive Dashboard.

Key Findings

The bottom 25% of drivers account for over half of commercial collisions. These are called “Risky” drivers

Fleets using the Zendrive Dashboard to control risk saw a 11.4% improvement in their riskiest drivers over the course of the first 250 days, as measured by the Zendrive Score, a comprehensive measurement of unsafe driving behaviors including distracted driving, swerving, and more

They reduced their likelihood of getting into a collision by 49% during those first 250 days, as calculated based on industry standards using commercial auto frequency relatives

This safety boost translates into $874K to $2M of estimated reduction in losses for Bodily Injury and Property Damage Liability per 1000 risky drivers each year, depending on the type of vehicle, business and limit in plan

Safety improvements were sustained over the course of the study (250 days) and are expected to persist over the driver’s lifetime

Understanding the behaviors and attributes of risky drivers puts us a step closer towards preventing traffic crashes. The Zendrive Dashboard serves as a powerful tool for improving driving behavior over time, saving both money and lives. We hope to see a decrease in traffic crashes in the coming years as more commercial fleets leverage Zendrive’s technology.

Zendrive’s mission is to make the world’s roads safer through data and analytics. By leveraging mobile sensor data, we deliver actionable insights that improve safety for passengers and drivers worldwide, and provide insurers and fleets with direct line-of-sight into driving behavior and risk, with the ability to meaningfully reduce that risk along with operational costs. Launched in 2013 and based in San Francisco, Zendrive has analyzed billions of driving miles and trillions of data points.

Zendrive’s mission is to make the world’s roads safer through data and analytics. By leveraging mobile sensor data, we deliver actionable insights that improve safety for passengers and drivers worldwide, and provide insurers and fleets with direct line-of-sight into driving behavior and risk, with the ability to meaningfully reduce that risk along with operational costs. Launched in 2013 and based in San Francisco, Zendrive has analyzed billions of driving miles and trillions of data points.